What was your scariest moment in a helicopter?
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Location: UK
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Where's the ground?
FWIW my scariest moment (which even now sends shivers down my spine) was being the co-pilot in a Lynx AH7, number 2 in a pair making a pairs night PAR, (GCA to those unaware) to a US airfield in a well known sand pit that at the time was 8/8ths fog with no other references apart from the NVG station keeping lights of the lead aircraft 30m slightly lower and to the side in front of us.
As we descended through 200' agl in the latter stages of the PAR, still not being visual with the ground or anything at this stage! as it was a moonless night which was making the NVG work really hard and losing sight cross cockpit of the lead aircraft.
Just as I could feel the leans coming on and the fear gripping my guts, hearing the rear crew calling visual then seeing for myself a taxi-way and then seeing some other parked aircraft through the murk and feeling that "thank god sensation" I'm sure we've all felt at some time.
We finished our approach and taxied in with use of a guide dog, feel and every light on the aircraft after landing thinking that the last 100kgs of fuel had lasted a long time as the low fuel lights had been on the last 10 mins, thankfully not all the guages read right! and then being mobbed by a surprised ground staff and hearing of numerous cancelled sorties.
there for but the grace of god and all that.
moral of the story don't push it just to get home, especially when you've passed gass en-route and opted not to stop and you don't know the weather at your destination, operational or not I'm sure our friends and relatives wouldn't have appreciated not getting us back.
Fly safe....mmm yes
As we descended through 200' agl in the latter stages of the PAR, still not being visual with the ground or anything at this stage! as it was a moonless night which was making the NVG work really hard and losing sight cross cockpit of the lead aircraft.
Just as I could feel the leans coming on and the fear gripping my guts, hearing the rear crew calling visual then seeing for myself a taxi-way and then seeing some other parked aircraft through the murk and feeling that "thank god sensation" I'm sure we've all felt at some time.
We finished our approach and taxied in with use of a guide dog, feel and every light on the aircraft after landing thinking that the last 100kgs of fuel had lasted a long time as the low fuel lights had been on the last 10 mins, thankfully not all the guages read right! and then being mobbed by a surprised ground staff and hearing of numerous cancelled sorties.
there for but the grace of god and all that.
moral of the story don't push it just to get home, especially when you've passed gass en-route and opted not to stop and you don't know the weather at your destination, operational or not I'm sure our friends and relatives wouldn't have appreciated not getting us back.
Fly safe....mmm yes
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Near mid air
Around 1973/74 Ft. Stewart, Georgia on a FTX (Field Training Exercise). Flying an AH-1G Cobra and doing a simulated gun run on a convoy. Rolled the Snake over into a wing over at about 3000 ft. and proceeded to do an almost vertical dive on the convoy. At about 800-900 ft (just pulling out of the dive) caught a glimpse of an OH-58A (Military jet ranger) level and on a collison course. No time to react and passed the OH-58 tail rotor with just enough distance for our main rotor to clear his tail. On the ground after the incident my legs were so wobbly I could hardly stand. The G model snake was a beautiful machine to fly and the front seat had a small side stick controller which reminds me of the A330 side stick I fly now.
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As already said its afterwards you get really scared, no time for it during the emergency unless..........some one has a gun to your head for a while. 1988, flying from Stansted to Leicester except my passenger decided he wanted to land at a high security prison en route to get his mates "out of jail". I literally had a gun to my head for 15 minutes or so. Even then, and despite threats of "one in the leg if you don't do as your told", the brain is working so hard to find a way out that fear takes a back seat.
After they'd gone and I tried to call the police my mouth was so dry I couldn't talk straight away.
I've had loads of other scares in 35 years of this game but I think believing I was about to be shot as soon as landed takes the biscuit. My only strategy was to continue flying for as long as possible until a way out presented itself thus prolonging the pain. And, of course, the flow of adrenalin slows time down to a crawl............I promise you that 15 minutes felt like hours.
After they'd gone and I tried to call the police my mouth was so dry I couldn't talk straight away.
I've had loads of other scares in 35 years of this game but I think believing I was about to be shot as soon as landed takes the biscuit. My only strategy was to continue flying for as long as possible until a way out presented itself thus prolonging the pain. And, of course, the flow of adrenalin slows time down to a crawl............I promise you that 15 minutes felt like hours.
I wasn't going to post thiis, but as it was so recent and is still fresh in my mind and a couple of fellow pilots have suggested it may be useful here goes.
En route to maintenance for a SAS computer replacement, under 8/8s white at 500ft just off the coast. Arrive within 2 miles of base and turn inland, base surrounded by hills trying to maintain VMC and fly over the valley top and let down to the hangar.
Can’t maintain VMC, wheels up caution activates (which it does sometimes spuriously). Pull up into IMC and climb like a bat out of hell. to MSA.
Pop out the top @ 2000’ into 8/8s blue and hear one the other pilots calling on the radio, I guess he must have heard me go around and straight over the top of the site. Brief chat to discuss ways to let down. I am considering my options when out of the blue the aircraft starts yawing left and right and sounds like I imagine a p**ssed off rhinoceros would. My first reaction is what did I hit, or whats fallen off, so I look over my shoulder, nothing appears to be hanging off. As I look back at the panel I see ‘2 engine N2 and Tq bouncing around the 75% mark (instruments difficult to read due to vibration). Lowering the lever, I look at the panel to confirm which engine, it must be #2 the TOT has fallen to zero, oh no it hasn’t its hard against the stop from the other side so way above 1000 degrees. I reach and grasp #2 Fuel control lever and retard it towards idle, the yawing stops. I try and tell the guy on the ground, but he’s just gone off the radio as he walks back to the hangar, back to the last frequency for ATC, the call goes something like ‘Approach this GXXXX back with you 2000’ over base, I’ve had an engine failure on #2, tell St. Mawgan I am on the way, this is a Mayday’ Apparently it came out rather hurried and in a slightly concerned tone. At this point a complete calm descends upon me as I head off for my intended landing site. ‘GXXX squawk emergency, heading 270 and St. Mawgan 128xx they are expecting you’
I change frequency and speak to one of the best controllers I’ve ever spoken to. I tell him of my problem, and he gives me vectors for their ILS.I am now very interested in the good engine and set it well below what I am allowed to pull and accept a slightly lower than achievable speed en route. He offers me the wx, I don’t really want it, but listen intently, overcast at 200’ and 1000ish m viz gets my attention. I set up the procedure from the plate on my knee and confirm that this is correct. The procedure had just changed (within days) and my updates were very helpfully just being delivered to my house that morning. Slightly disconcerted we discuss the finer points of the procedure (it hasn’t changed that much). The DME fails, I inform the controller, and remind him I am single crew, so working quite hard. He calls radar ranges every mile for the next 15 minutes. I notice on the GPS I am almost over my house (how ironic).
‘Would you like a slighty closer vector say 7miles, you are being vectored towards a 10 mile ILS at the moment’ I am asked’ I accept.
I spend the next 10ish miles thinking about the good engine, the procedure I am about to fly and what to do with the bad one, I keep it a t ground Idle, but am ready to kill it at a moments notice. The wheels up caution activates again.
A local helicopter is established on the ILS and he says (probably for my benefit that he is visual at 620ft), procedure minimum is 590 and threshold is 390.
Can you climb, says the controller, ‘No says I’, I am thinking I want on the ground, and don’t want to overtax the good engine.
After what seems like an eternity , I establish on the localiser, then with the glide.
The previously mentioned helicopter stays out talking to tower giving them constant cloudbase reports.’Mayday GXX is cleared to land’. Now at about 3 miles I get ranges every ˝ miles at 1 mile to go still solid IMC, then at about half a mile the lead in lights appear faintly through the clag, I am going to make it. At 590’ now visual, I check wheels down, brakes off and nosewheel pin in is in (for the 5th time). I inform them I am going to land long, I float along the runway bleeding off what speed I have, not moving the lever at all , just slowing to Max Landing Speed, I call for a wind check 90 degrees off at 17kts. The best run on landing I’ve ever done on type follows, as soon as the weight is on the wheels I reach up and shutdown #2, close the fuel valves and taxi onto the north side of the airfield. It is at this point that apparently that my calm tone changes and the controllers now realise how human I am feeling. An uneventful taxi off and park follows on one engine.
After many phone calls (owners, maintenance, family) I eventually get to visit the man to whom I will always be grateful, the controller who talked me in. What an absolute professional. A man without whom I would have had a much more difficult afternoon. I am then very kindly driven home by one of the other ATCers, who had just come off duty.
The engine is still in the airframe as of this afternoon, but a visual inspection down the intake seems to show the compressor in a very sorry state of repair.
Can’t maintain VMC, wheels up caution activates (which it does sometimes spuriously). Pull up into IMC and climb like a bat out of hell. to MSA.
Pop out the top @ 2000’ into 8/8s blue and hear one the other pilots calling on the radio, I guess he must have heard me go around and straight over the top of the site. Brief chat to discuss ways to let down. I am considering my options when out of the blue the aircraft starts yawing left and right and sounds like I imagine a p**ssed off rhinoceros would. My first reaction is what did I hit, or whats fallen off, so I look over my shoulder, nothing appears to be hanging off. As I look back at the panel I see ‘2 engine N2 and Tq bouncing around the 75% mark (instruments difficult to read due to vibration). Lowering the lever, I look at the panel to confirm which engine, it must be #2 the TOT has fallen to zero, oh no it hasn’t its hard against the stop from the other side so way above 1000 degrees. I reach and grasp #2 Fuel control lever and retard it towards idle, the yawing stops. I try and tell the guy on the ground, but he’s just gone off the radio as he walks back to the hangar, back to the last frequency for ATC, the call goes something like ‘Approach this GXXXX back with you 2000’ over base, I’ve had an engine failure on #2, tell St. Mawgan I am on the way, this is a Mayday’ Apparently it came out rather hurried and in a slightly concerned tone. At this point a complete calm descends upon me as I head off for my intended landing site. ‘GXXX squawk emergency, heading 270 and St. Mawgan 128xx they are expecting you’
I change frequency and speak to one of the best controllers I’ve ever spoken to. I tell him of my problem, and he gives me vectors for their ILS.I am now very interested in the good engine and set it well below what I am allowed to pull and accept a slightly lower than achievable speed en route. He offers me the wx, I don’t really want it, but listen intently, overcast at 200’ and 1000ish m viz gets my attention. I set up the procedure from the plate on my knee and confirm that this is correct. The procedure had just changed (within days) and my updates were very helpfully just being delivered to my house that morning. Slightly disconcerted we discuss the finer points of the procedure (it hasn’t changed that much). The DME fails, I inform the controller, and remind him I am single crew, so working quite hard. He calls radar ranges every mile for the next 15 minutes. I notice on the GPS I am almost over my house (how ironic).
‘Would you like a slighty closer vector say 7miles, you are being vectored towards a 10 mile ILS at the moment’ I am asked’ I accept.
I spend the next 10ish miles thinking about the good engine, the procedure I am about to fly and what to do with the bad one, I keep it a t ground Idle, but am ready to kill it at a moments notice. The wheels up caution activates again.
A local helicopter is established on the ILS and he says (probably for my benefit that he is visual at 620ft), procedure minimum is 590 and threshold is 390.
Can you climb, says the controller, ‘No says I’, I am thinking I want on the ground, and don’t want to overtax the good engine.
After what seems like an eternity , I establish on the localiser, then with the glide.
The previously mentioned helicopter stays out talking to tower giving them constant cloudbase reports.’Mayday GXX is cleared to land’. Now at about 3 miles I get ranges every ˝ miles at 1 mile to go still solid IMC, then at about half a mile the lead in lights appear faintly through the clag, I am going to make it. At 590’ now visual, I check wheels down, brakes off and nosewheel pin in is in (for the 5th time). I inform them I am going to land long, I float along the runway bleeding off what speed I have, not moving the lever at all , just slowing to Max Landing Speed, I call for a wind check 90 degrees off at 17kts. The best run on landing I’ve ever done on type follows, as soon as the weight is on the wheels I reach up and shutdown #2, close the fuel valves and taxi onto the north side of the airfield. It is at this point that apparently that my calm tone changes and the controllers now realise how human I am feeling. An uneventful taxi off and park follows on one engine.
After many phone calls (owners, maintenance, family) I eventually get to visit the man to whom I will always be grateful, the controller who talked me in. What an absolute professional. A man without whom I would have had a much more difficult afternoon. I am then very kindly driven home by one of the other ATCers, who had just come off duty.
The engine is still in the airframe as of this afternoon, but a visual inspection down the intake seems to show the compressor in a very sorry state of repair.
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Just wanted to thank all the members who share their stories on this thread, as a helicopter pilot of still limited experience it is really helpful to be able to learn from people who are prepared to talk about some of their mistakes. Cheers 
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I haven't really had many scary moments, fortunately. Perhaps I'm just too dumb to be scared. But one night we dropped out of the clouds in a HEDA, heading for a drillship all alone way, way out. I checked the cojo, stable at 500' on a downwind, and looked down and chaged the selector switch to company flight following, called local at the ship, looked back up, and we were passing through 200', in a 900'/min descent. I grabbed the controls, leveled off, and climbed back up, and then the cojo realized what had happened. He had been trying to fly visually with absolutely no outside reference. I made a slow pattern and approach to the ship, because it took a little while to let the adrenaline levels subside.
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Thought about putting something here for a while but which of the many to include?
Certainly the first emerg was a gem, chaffing faults on the harness of both mags resulted in two on one side of three not firing and totally blurred vision. I couldn’t see any of the instruments and little outside, at 300 hours total time it was lucky that I remembered an old gravel pit not far in front of me.
Another where the damper clamp bolts all parted company in a ‘ 47 definitely frightened me, it turned super sensitive and it was from about 300 feet straight ahead into a dry waterhole with several large rocks that I very luckily arrived in after nearly inverting it three times. I remember saying as I sat there muscles still locked up on the ground, good boy- good boy and taking my first very deep breath.
A fractured main pressure xmon oil line on a 3B1 which then decided to spurt all over the turbo also got me going big time when first I spotted the massive plume of smoke behind. Down very quickly and in my excitement grabbed the fire-ex, pulled the pin and squirt, yah biggest face full, bloody nozzle back to front eh. But the fire would not go out until some time later after many handfuls of dry dirt. That was when I noticed my legs were shaking like jelly.
I think the worst was in fixed wing. A night search for an overdue company pilot in a ’47. The night was as black as the inside of a dogs guts. We embarked with the duty IFR driver in a baron which had a really beaut flight director in it. Well that’s what the boss said every time we talked about it, his pride and joy it was, could almost skin cats this device, I’m sure - according to him.
So I jump in the front with the driver mainly because I don’t trust anyone else to do a proper radio search. Procedure is, fly the track at 6,000 feet and radio search, xmit – listen carefully, use all likely frqs continuously, big time- full time concentration. Goddamm I think I heard something, this is years before GPS. There’s bloody cloud cover the driver informs me. “Can we go under so we can do a search for afire?” Says I. This is very much the easiest way to find someone at night.
“I’ll try,” he says. Minima’s at 1100 feet, we break through at 900. We both knew the area intimately.
Doing a fire and radio search just as I heard another faint squawk we spotted a fire. OK – now; track and distance from nearest location, notify the local FSU who were close enough for VHF contact and stand by, - ever heard that before?
No worries. Later, ‘Can we fly a racetrack pattern to site from locator as they have a vehicle which will drive out?’
“ Sure.” We reckoned. Time is now around 9.30pm.
We observe the vehicles very slow progress across half boggy deeply gilgaed country that was infested with turpentine bush. A thick brush about eight foot tall and a real killer on tyres. Ground Vis would be about fifty yards; they were to follow our lights each time we turned. They had about 25 klms to run.
It was very boring, I’m starting to get sleepy, all of a sudden I feel something VERY wrong, big ROD I thought, s*** gauge says 2200fpm; compass was spinning, ASI climbing rapidly. I felt the two blokes in the back become very alert, the driver sussed it real quick and recovered. None of us will ever know at what height.
Turns out the boss’s real flash Flight Director had locked one of the bugs and stayed inclined at the standard 30 degrees from the turn. An hour later one of the local Air-Med planes took over. At two thirty am we get a phone call, can we go out again the vehicle isn’t far away now and the other plane has another job to do. Our two observers were in the land of zzedd; I says, “Yep I’ll go with you if you want to,” to the driver. Well what else could we say, one of ours and we still didn’t know whether the pilot was OK or not.
We stayed on station with this idiot locked up bug looking at us for another two hours, checking each other more than the flight profile. I don’t remember many times being more tired
Finally back to the town of the local FSU and get one hours’ sleep. They had squared away with the motel a feed for us at daylight; someone forgot to tell the cook. We go and see the cook in the motel kitchen; ‘can we get a feed mate?’ saya I. He had been on a bender and responded by telling us all to get F***** and chased me around the kitchen with a very long butchers knife.
We left, and flew back another two hours home, took it in fifteen minute turns to fly, with the two blokes in back watching that we didn’t go to sleep, did about fifteen checks for wheels down on finals. Slept all day and spent many sleepless night after that, wondering just how close did we come and what would the investigation have revealed had we? We reckoned it would be everything except a locked up bug.
Before that they all used to reckon that IFR driver was a wan***, I reckon he was proper all right after that, eh. BTW I told the boss what I thought of his flash flight director.
Certainly the first emerg was a gem, chaffing faults on the harness of both mags resulted in two on one side of three not firing and totally blurred vision. I couldn’t see any of the instruments and little outside, at 300 hours total time it was lucky that I remembered an old gravel pit not far in front of me.
Another where the damper clamp bolts all parted company in a ‘ 47 definitely frightened me, it turned super sensitive and it was from about 300 feet straight ahead into a dry waterhole with several large rocks that I very luckily arrived in after nearly inverting it three times. I remember saying as I sat there muscles still locked up on the ground, good boy- good boy and taking my first very deep breath.
A fractured main pressure xmon oil line on a 3B1 which then decided to spurt all over the turbo also got me going big time when first I spotted the massive plume of smoke behind. Down very quickly and in my excitement grabbed the fire-ex, pulled the pin and squirt, yah biggest face full, bloody nozzle back to front eh. But the fire would not go out until some time later after many handfuls of dry dirt. That was when I noticed my legs were shaking like jelly.
I think the worst was in fixed wing. A night search for an overdue company pilot in a ’47. The night was as black as the inside of a dogs guts. We embarked with the duty IFR driver in a baron which had a really beaut flight director in it. Well that’s what the boss said every time we talked about it, his pride and joy it was, could almost skin cats this device, I’m sure - according to him.
So I jump in the front with the driver mainly because I don’t trust anyone else to do a proper radio search. Procedure is, fly the track at 6,000 feet and radio search, xmit – listen carefully, use all likely frqs continuously, big time- full time concentration. Goddamm I think I heard something, this is years before GPS. There’s bloody cloud cover the driver informs me. “Can we go under so we can do a search for afire?” Says I. This is very much the easiest way to find someone at night.
“I’ll try,” he says. Minima’s at 1100 feet, we break through at 900. We both knew the area intimately.
Doing a fire and radio search just as I heard another faint squawk we spotted a fire. OK – now; track and distance from nearest location, notify the local FSU who were close enough for VHF contact and stand by, - ever heard that before?
No worries. Later, ‘Can we fly a racetrack pattern to site from locator as they have a vehicle which will drive out?’
“ Sure.” We reckoned. Time is now around 9.30pm.
We observe the vehicles very slow progress across half boggy deeply gilgaed country that was infested with turpentine bush. A thick brush about eight foot tall and a real killer on tyres. Ground Vis would be about fifty yards; they were to follow our lights each time we turned. They had about 25 klms to run.
It was very boring, I’m starting to get sleepy, all of a sudden I feel something VERY wrong, big ROD I thought, s*** gauge says 2200fpm; compass was spinning, ASI climbing rapidly. I felt the two blokes in the back become very alert, the driver sussed it real quick and recovered. None of us will ever know at what height.
Turns out the boss’s real flash Flight Director had locked one of the bugs and stayed inclined at the standard 30 degrees from the turn. An hour later one of the local Air-Med planes took over. At two thirty am we get a phone call, can we go out again the vehicle isn’t far away now and the other plane has another job to do. Our two observers were in the land of zzedd; I says, “Yep I’ll go with you if you want to,” to the driver. Well what else could we say, one of ours and we still didn’t know whether the pilot was OK or not.
We stayed on station with this idiot locked up bug looking at us for another two hours, checking each other more than the flight profile. I don’t remember many times being more tired
Finally back to the town of the local FSU and get one hours’ sleep. They had squared away with the motel a feed for us at daylight; someone forgot to tell the cook. We go and see the cook in the motel kitchen; ‘can we get a feed mate?’ saya I. He had been on a bender and responded by telling us all to get F***** and chased me around the kitchen with a very long butchers knife.
We left, and flew back another two hours home, took it in fifteen minute turns to fly, with the two blokes in back watching that we didn’t go to sleep, did about fifteen checks for wheels down on finals. Slept all day and spent many sleepless night after that, wondering just how close did we come and what would the investigation have revealed had we? We reckoned it would be everything except a locked up bug.
Before that they all used to reckon that IFR driver was a wan***, I reckon he was proper all right after that, eh. BTW I told the boss what I thought of his flash flight director.
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Tree planting on the west coast of Canada. Only machine a HU500D and around 12 crew. Very busy all toe in's, & hover exits, no reliable pads mostly rotten or gone from the winter snows.
Near the end of the project and starting to pull garbage & gear off the hill using a 200' line I'm constantly reminding the crew to make sure they load the nets with something other than cardboard (empty tree boxes). We've been together a week and I'm actually starting to trust these guy's they've all been very good around the helicopter. Then it happens I'm off the hill around 5,000' heading for the landing, a float at sea level, with a net load on the line. After I'm away from the hill, head inside quick check of the gauges, nose over, turn my head for one last look at the load before the bottom and it's not there...following the line the load has flown itself to a position slightly aft, port side and above the a/c, BIG climbing turn away from the line while bleeding off A/S to set things right.
Complacent? you bet the only time I didn't ask if the net was weighted and it caught me. Those words from an instructor many hours ago "remember everyones trying to kill you" are running through my head while being totally thankful I'm not the cause of a salvage operation from the bottom of the fjord below me.
Near the end of the project and starting to pull garbage & gear off the hill using a 200' line I'm constantly reminding the crew to make sure they load the nets with something other than cardboard (empty tree boxes). We've been together a week and I'm actually starting to trust these guy's they've all been very good around the helicopter. Then it happens I'm off the hill around 5,000' heading for the landing, a float at sea level, with a net load on the line. After I'm away from the hill, head inside quick check of the gauges, nose over, turn my head for one last look at the load before the bottom and it's not there...following the line the load has flown itself to a position slightly aft, port side and above the a/c, BIG climbing turn away from the line while bleeding off A/S to set things right.
Complacent? you bet the only time I didn't ask if the net was weighted and it caught me. Those words from an instructor many hours ago "remember everyones trying to kill you" are running through my head while being totally thankful I'm not the cause of a salvage operation from the bottom of the fjord below me.
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I’d like to know what happened during the rest of the flight that I don’t remember.
170 - You should write a book!
Fantastic read - I thouroughly your post.
[I am serious about the book - you are a very talented writer!]
Fantastic read - I thouroughly your post.
[I am serious about the book - you are a very talented writer!]
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Mid 80's flying a Puma over the jungles of Belize. Hell of a bang from the back end and a tad of vibration set in (this 'tad' was strong enough that I couldn't read the instruments and the scene outside was just a blur). decided it might be prudent to land but, dark green everywhere I looked apart from a lighter green blob. Decided to land there. Crewman pushed out a Mayday on all freqs (he decided to become a pilot after this incident). Made an approach to the green blob - turned out to be a swamp with 10ft reeds. no choice, so shut down. Aircraft settled into the swamp and rolled about 10degrees. Sigh of relief. Bigger sigh when I looked at the tail rotor to see the pockets on one blade had all departed. Not impressed by the crack all the way down one side of the tail boom just in front of the intermediate box. Engineers subsequently reckoned that another 45secs of flight and the whole tail assembly would have come off. Battle damage repaired and flew it out 10 days later. What really made me think was that the day before I had been 100mls out to sea, with no comms with anyone , flying the same aircraft. Hey ho!
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Seriously
having never been in anything smaller than a Gazelle then going for a buzz in a friends R22. You could find more technology in a machano kit. Hell they dont even give you your own cyclic.
having never been in anything smaller than a Gazelle then going for a buzz in a friends R22. You could find more technology in a machano kit. Hell they dont even give you your own cyclic.